Monday, November 24, 2014

Mike Honda gives Rand Paul a history lesson on internment camps

CONGRESS | 17TH DISTRICT | When it comes to Japanese internment camps, Rep. Mike Honda is the beltway's expert. So, when presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul equated it to President Obama's immigration policy, Honda was ready to correct the record. "At best, he is confused. At worst, he is just wrong," said Honda in a statement Monday morning.

“I care that too much power gets in one place. Why? Because there are instances in our history where we allow power to gravitate toward one person and that one person then makes decisions that really are egregious. Think of what happened in World War II where they made the decision. The president issued an executive order. He said to Japanese people, ‘We’re going to put you in a camp. We’re going to take away all your rights and liberties and we’re going to intern you in a camp.’ We shouldn’t allow that much power to gravitate to one individual.”

As young boy, Honda spent time at a Japanese American internment camp in Colorado. He said, unlike President Roosevelt's notorious executive order, Obama's plan to shield up to five million undocumented immigrants from legal jeopardy "is an appropriate use of executive order because Congress did not do its job."

President Roosevelt’s action was based on racism, fear, hysteria, war, and the lack of real political leadership. He succumbed to political pressure to deny Constitutional protections to 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of who were US-born citizens.